Nick Allbrook from POND on ‘Terrestrials’, album artwork and physical music

POND. Photo credit: Sam Kristofski

POND released their eleventh studio album Terrestrials in June. Painted by Australian artist Jessie Nash, the album’s cover artwork leans into surrealism, distortion and a deep, almost confrontational red, reflecting the record’s physicality, urgency and distinctly Australian character. Jessie sat down with Pond’s Nick Allbrook to chat about building that world together, the relationship between music and imagery and the enduring pull of album artwork.

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Jessie: How do you feel about it [the album cover]? Are you happy with it? [laughs] It's very different to a lot of your other album artworks.

Nick: Yeah, totally. I love it. Gum [Jay Watson] is really good with keeping—I don't know. He has a finer attention to detail, and also terrible attention to detail in some instances, but he noticed that we didn't really have much red across the catalogue.

Jessie: Yeah, very true.

Nick: Which, I wouldn't have—

Jessie: —wouldn't have even clocked?

Nick: Yeah, I wouldn't have. I think there's a lot of blue and green. And there also isn't much painting.

Jessie: Yeah, you have a lot of photographs and graphics, which suits the albums a lot. I was thinking about the idea of how much an album artwork means to the songs. Have you ever been in a position where you've heard something differently because of the visuals around the album or song?

Nick: Oh, probably. Yeah.

Jessie: Do you know what I mean? I remember when I was younger, there were a few occasions where I'd be like, not that fussed by a song. And I don't have great—I’m like, pop girly. I grew up on Green Day and Jimmy Barnes. But sometimes you hear a song and it doesn't do much to you, but then you'd see the music video and be like, that's my favourite song, because it made you feel a different way about it. It gave it a visual world.

Nick: Yeah, absolutely. I reckon it’s become a massive thing. More recently, since the overproduction of this—the almost Marvelification of rockumentaries.

Jessie: Yes, oh my gosh, so interesting.

Nick: Because people will—I don't know, it seems to be a constant thing where it's like, man, Queen are having a big moment in the charts because suddenly they have a narrative and it's sort of Hollywoodified.

Jessie: Yeah, very true. I guess that also goes back to that idea of how you build a world around certain things. Like with this album, in particular, the visuals create a little world for it and then each album, I suppose, exists in a world, which is then in another world, which is just your world in general. And then it's so funny, like in Hollywood, that's such a little offshoot of all the worlds or something like that.

Nick: Yeah. I can imagine how it would really colour the way people read the album. I'm thinking about our album A Warm—it feels like space again. People saw that. It's already kind of written into the narrative of the whole thing that it's a bit fun, a bit kooky, a bit retro, a bit psychedelic, a bit goofy. And this one's like, yeah, red, and harsh, and weird.

Jessie: I think people hear the word terrestrials, and they instantly think of extraterrestrials, which is such a weird, backwards thing of what the word actually means. Yeah, and the album and everything's quite weird, and it is quite extraterrestrial.

Nick: Yeah, the visual identity of it worked out super, super well. Because, you know, it's paintings of people. But they're skewed, and a little bit surreal, very surreal. And Terrestrials is about humans, but humans are weird.

Terrestrials [2026] by POND. Album artwork by Jessie Nash.

Jessie: They are [laughs]. One of the album references you gave me was a magazine cover, which I love, and it's actually by—do you know who did that cover? It's by a female artist called Linda. She's quite an amazing kind of—I want to say she must have been from the '70s. I think that album artwork was from like '78? So yeah, a lot of collage, hyper-feminist stuff. And I actually think that's quite different to a lot of the work that I know her for. But she was known for kind of skewing the reality, cutting and pasting. I didn't know that it was her that did that until maybe a week ago. I feel like that was quite similar to how I approached this album artwork, because I knew you guys wanted it to be people, but not people, you know. Is that what drew you to that magazine cover?

Nick: Yeah, totally. It's kind of scary. I think a lot of that stuff from that kind of era, especially that sort of Thatcherite British era, is looking at the mundane, the everyday, and saying something really gothic and sinister. For one, seeing something really gothic and sinister in it, but also seeing something fantastical. Yeah, that can take you out of the drudgery of everyday. And I suppose, in a completely different way, that can be turned into an Australian perspective as well, and it has been, because that magazine one is grey and ours is red.

Jessie: Yes, yeah! And that was one of the first things. I mean, I paint in red a lot. I have done for quite a few years, which was basically just an exercise in understanding colour more. And I've become quite addicted to it. I basically wanted to reduce my palette so I could see the differences in tone more. And I stuck with red and then went into pinks and purples and stuff like that. But the red is obviously why maybe my work stuck out to you, but it was one of the first things you sort of said spoke to the album. And in reference to it being a colour that is very Australian and hot.

Nick: And violent as well, yeah.

Jessie: Yeah, very violent.

Nick: And corporeal. The whole thing was because we wanted it to be immediate and physical. We wanted to do the music together and to perform it quickly, intimately and aggressively. Basically all your shit was kind of already made for it, in all those ways. Because of the colour, the Australian terrestrial, the dirt of Australia, the Pindan colour, and the violence, the sort of homogeneity of the vision.

Jessie: Yeah, something being dangerous and also being, I guess, beautiful or pleasing at the same time.

Nick: Yeah, exactly.

Jessie: I also wondered, this doesn't apply just to this. For all of your albums, when it comes to artwork, how long do you work on an album or write it before you start thinking about the visuals around it, does it come to you as you make it? Or have you ever been like, this is an image, and that will be my album artwork, no matter what the album sounds like? Are they directly related? Or can they exist separately? This is a photo of a flower and this is the album, and they don't have anything together, but I just like the photo, so I put it on the album cover?

Nick: Yeah, I mean, you could, but the thing is, no. It feels better to me to be a bit more agile with what you're making. Because I think it can be a pretty good way to fuck up your creativity. If you stick really rigidly to your plans and your preconceived notions of how your project's gonna go, because art doesn't go in a straight line. This is all part of that thing of, like, this is why people cling on to it. This is why me and a lot of other people can get creatively blocked. Because you start thinking of this idea, this is my kernel of gold. And if I don't make sure this is used in exactly that way, and this is as big as possible, then I'm fucked because I can't think of anything else.

Jessie: Yes, this is all I have, my nugget.

Nick: But it's not true. Like, you've got a good idea for an album cover. The music starts sounding different. Fuck it off.

Jessie: Absolutely.

Nick: Done. Doesn't matter.

Jessie:Let me check my notes. We touched on the conspiracy of Hollywood.

Nick:What did you have written down about Hollywood world building?

Jessie: I wrote, "Touch on the concept conspiracy of Hollywood world building, do people like a song more, feel it differently after seeing it in a higher place".

Nick: Yeah, man. Like, what about Stranger Things on Netflix. Okay. Yeah. Kate Bush.

Jessie: Oh, my gosh. Great example.

Nick: That's the ultimate example. Suddenly people were like, "Oh, my God, this song really speaks to me," because it's in this hyper-dramatic thing. All your emotions have been building towards this one final scene. You've got this relationship with your characters.

Jessie: I haven't seen Stranger Things.

Nick: Yeah, neither.

Jessie: But it's also like—not—but even I know that that's what it is. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know that Running Up That Hill is back on the radio because of this TV show. And it's not even just people. It's kids. It's TikTok. TikTok likes Kate Bush.

Nick: Yeah exacly. An I remember Joe, you know, in our band, Shiny Joe, when we were in Dublin on tour, we went and saw the N.W.A. movie. And he just walked out of the cinema and was like, you know, just singing all the songs. And then for the next couple of months, he was just walking around, "I fucking love this stuff." He was like, "Wasn't someone gonna tell me about N.W.A.?" I didn't think we needed to. [laughs]

Jessie: I mean, not gonna lie. I mean, I'm obviously a huge Kylie Minogue fan, but I did just watch her documentary. It came out and I'm like, yeah, it's fucking good.

Nick: I can’t wait, yeah. Can’t wait.

Jessie: Right. The other thing I'll ask is—I think, Maia, how are we going for time? We're doing good.

Maia (in the background on Zoom): Don't mind my McChicken here.

Jessie: I'm so jealous. McChicken's my burger of choice. What's yours, Nick?

Nick: Oh, probably a Rebel Whopper.

Maia: Oh, that's a dangerous choice. I like that.

Jessie: Okay, I have another question. I have two. One is, what is your favourite album artwork of yours? No, I have three. What's your favourite album artwork of yours? Not including mine, because I know mine's your favourite [laughs]. Historically, is there one that you look back on and you go, speaking of the worlds and how we do, I guess, agree on them correlating to the music, is there one that you're like, oh, I get that?

Nick: Yeah. I mean, I think as something that just looks really great, I love The Weather. Because it's that old, that '80s postcard of Perth CBD.

Jessie: Yes, yeah. So nostalgic.

Nick: It's awesome. And it looks fucking cool. But I reckon the one that really captured the album and the time really well was Beard, Wives, Denim. The sort of beige harvest colour and the photo, the actual Polaroid of Kevin, Joe and Jamie standing at the fence looking at the cows as they were coming up.

The Weather [2017] and Beard, Wives, Denim [2012] by POND

Jessie: Yeah, that's great. What about another artist? Have you got a favourite album artwork?

Nick: I really love the cover of—oh, you know, my favourite album artwork, I can actually answer that. I can't believe I thought of this. Another Green World by Brian Eno. It's really pretty.

Jessie: Beautiful.

Nick:And it's a little section of an artwork that I don't know the name of or the artist who did it.

Jessie: That's really nice.

Nick: Yeah, it's awesome, hey? I love it.

Jessie: And it looks how the title sounds.

Nick: It looks how the title sounds and it looks how the songs sound. It's perfect, yeah. Can I also give a shout-out in relation to this album's artwork? In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, with the really fucked-up close-up face painting.

Jessie: Oh, you know what? That is so fucking weird.

Nick: Did we reference that when we were talking to you?

Jessie: Did you or did you not? I can't remember. I don't know if you did, but I saw it in a vinyl record fair recently.

Nick: Yeah. How good is it?

Jessie: But also it's very painterly, like, you know, and actually I want to say about the print of it—it turned out so painterly, the exact same thing. It can be so easy to flatten, I think, an image, and I was really drawn to that because I guess also because of the colours.

But that's a really good shout-out, that one. 

Jessie:Have you ever bought an album purely because of the artwork and you didn't have any idea what was behind the plastic?

Nick: Oh, fuck yeah.

Jessie: Yeah. You have?

Nick: Oh yeah, heaps. I reckon, well, I could go on, but I used to, you know, when I was like 19 or 20, I would just go into record stores. This is also before these guys. So I would just go into record stores and see three, like, a grainy photograph of three long-haired dudes with handlebar moustaches and Paisley kind of writing. And I'd be like, probably.

Jessie: I want that.

Nick: That's probably my shit.

Jessie: You're coming with me.

Nick: Yeah, yeah. And actually recently I got rid of a bunch of them because I realised they were just kind of shit. Like, I didn't really like them. Just miscellaneous psych garbage. But at the time I was just like, “psych! That's me!” I also— oh, Damn Sam, the Miracle Man and the Soul Congregation. 

*Jessie looks up album artwork*

Nick: Yeah. Can you see that album artwork?

Jessie: I can see it. That's beautiful.

Nick: It's sick, hey?

Jessie: Yeah. That's a painting as well, right?

Nick: Yeah. I bought that. I saw that. I was like, fucking absolutely sign me up.

Jessie: You must've liked it because you remember what it was.

Nick: Yeah. I've still got it. And apparently it's worth heaps. I play it all the time. I love it.

Jessie: Um, and actually I just thought of something because you picked up your phone. It's so interesting because I guess this was probably how—I imagine this is an unheard-of idea. I think a lot of people, historically, at least sort of 50 years ago or 20 years ago, even, people would go into record shops. I mean, I remember buying CDs because of the cover. But do you think that applies to streaming, to Spotify? Do you think that the way an album looks on screen can excite people?

Nick: Surely. Surely.

Jessie: I thought about, finally, I was like, I guess this painting's going to be—you know, I thought about how small it was going to be. It's going to sound crazy, but when I was doing it, I was thinking this painting has to look exciting, even as a thumbnail.

Nick: Yeah, that's good, because I never think of that stuff. So between you and Jay Watson, we've got people actually covering the minutia of the—

Jessie: We wouldn't be here without you, Nick. Don't worry. It's okay.

Nick: Man, yeah. I wouldn't have thought about it.

Jessie: It's just a weird one. I mean, it's kind of sad because it's so little and so digital and so fleeting, you know? People can just move on from it so fast.

Nick: Yeah, it sucks, man. But I reckon people are starting to give a fuck. I mean, people have always given a fuck, but I'm a terminal optimist. And I reckon people are starting to realise, or starting to remember, that the time before having the entire history of catalogued recorded music at your fingertips for 12 bucks a month—the time before that actually had something that wasn't just a kind of woo-woo nostalgia.

It was genuinely better. Like, it wasn't just something that let fucking killjoys and hippies say, "That was actually better." It was so intentional.

Jessie: Yeah. You would buy the thing and you would love it, over and over and over again.

Nick: Yeah. I reckon people are getting back to it and realising that it's not gone. The boat hasn't sailed.

Jessie: That's what I—I’ve got a CD player in my car, my little old banger. And it's life-changing, you know?

Nick: Yeah same. How fucking good is it having those things rolling around?

Jessie: They're everywhere. Yeah. But no, I agree. I don't think the ship sailed. I think people are becoming more aware of it again.

Nick: Yeah. You just turn around and get back to it. I had Sign of the Times by Prince, and it just stayed in the CD player for like three months.

Jessie: Yeah, fair. I mean, I finally—American Idiot by Green Day was like the biggest, like, the heaviest CD I ever owned. I remember having my Discman, and my mum and my sisters would piss me off, and I'd be like listening to it, thinking the whole world would be cured.

Nick: That's great. Love that.

Jessie: And on that note, I feel like this album is one of those albums, because I think that the songs are so good and they're so fast and they're so urgent and they're so—not busy. And it's the kind of album that, like, and I say this genuinely, you know those albums you listen to and you're like, "Fuck, this is the last song." As the last song comes on, you're really aware that it's the last song and you're like, "Let's do it again."

Nick: Yeah, sick. I hope so. That's good.

Jessie: So congrats!

Nick: Thanks, Jessie.